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December, 1909 "TAE Marine. REVIEW 507 Barriesuip SourH Carotina, Burtt sy WittiaAM Cramp & Sons Surp & Encine Bumpine Co., PHILADELPHIA, Pa. The Foreign Trade Merchant Marine { of - the United States--Can It be Revived?' By G. W. Dicxiz, Esg., MEMBER OF COUNCIL. BOUT one year ago when the society was considering where. to hold a spring meet- ing I suggested that it should come to the Pacific coast and hold its meeting on the shore of the great ocean on whose waters has begun a battle for the carrying trade between the oldest and the newest civiliza- tions. The final result of that strug- gle and the part we may be able to take in it are of vital importance to the members of this society; this is my excuse for 'bringing before you a subject somewhat out of the regular course' of technical matters discussed at our meetings. Out on the western edge of this great country we are too sick to take any interest in the technical details of our profession; we are in a battle Society of Naval -- bef the aper read _ before Men Vouk Architects and Marine Engineers. 'Nov. 18, 1909. for life with the chances all against us. Naval architecture in the abstract has no charms when there are no _ ships building for which to be the archi- 'tects. In presenting this subject to the socie- ty I would like to be able to say some- thing that I have not said during the - past 25 years in which I have been talking about it. The conditions have changed materially during these years; nations have come to the front out- stripping us in the race for the ocean- carrying trade; these nations we did not formerly consider as _ possible rivals. This condition is especially apparent in the carrying trade of the Pacific. The Ambition of Japan. Thirteen' years ago I was walking the deck of a British warship in the harbor of Yokohama with a Japanese. cabinet minister, the captain of the ship and a fleet engineer; we were talking of naval strength and merchant marine when the Japanese minister remarked that the am-~ bition of Japan was to be to the Pa- cific ocean what Great Britain was to the Atlantic. We had been boasting 'of the naval powers of the countries we represented and did not consider that there was anything more in the remark made by the Japanese than there was in those made by ourselves. As I write this a stately Japanese liner -sweeps down San Francisco bay and I am forced to admire her as she passes in full view of my office window, carry- ing the United States mails and two millions of dollars in gold bars in her specie room to help pay up the bal- ance of trade. The Japanese have recently built some trans-Pacific liners much more advanced in design than any naval architect in this country has had a